Leann ([email protected])
Tue, 15 Dec 1998 19:55:31 -0800
If you don't want to hear about Rattle and Hum you can skip this...it
rambles on for a while....
I agree that Rattle and Hum is an amazing album...to paraphrase BB King,
a lot of emotion in there. I don't think I'll ever understand or agree
with the critics, especially their idea that the band were putting
themselves up with the great legends of rocknroll, like Elvis. I think
that they were influenced by the early rocknroll music in the U.S.,
because they spent a great amount of time in North America during the
Joshua Tree tour and were just becoming interested in the past of their
chosen profession and were able to visit the sites. Would you pass up
recording at Sun Studio in Memphis? Would you pass up a private guided
tour of Graceland if you were a huge Elvis fan?
I love the music they created, I'm so glad that they were interested in
the old music, it is so often dismissed nowadays. How wonderful to see
BBKing up on stage with Bono singing a great rocknroll song, "When I
woke up I was sleeping on the street, I felt the world was dancing, And
I was the dirt beneath their feet..." And a song co-written with Bob
Dylan, what a dream! A song dedicated to Billie Holiday...and
Heartland, a song which fills me with such emotion, I've seen that, it
speaks to me of home, not the Mississippi, but the two rivers that cut
through the city where I grew up, Sacramento. I can feel the heat of
summer and the desert, the delta, the valleys, the towers of steel. I
can still remember how I felt when I listened to the album the first
time. Hearing Edge sing a song was so cool! And then there are all the
great live songs.
The whole packaging of the vinyl record is just so beautiful. The black
and white photography is stunning and the photos on the actual records
themselves, each side a different bandmember. Vinyl isn't dead!
And the film, I was really really excited just seeing the previews.
Seeing the film in the theater was such an experience. I was a huge U2
fan and I hadn't been able to see any of the Joshua Tree shows (which
was a disappointment), my parents wouldn't let me at the time, I was
something like 13 years old, and so seeing footage from the shows meant
so much to me. Besides, the cinematography was beautiful. I loved the
scene of the famous San Francisco graffiti that Bono did. I've been
there, seen that sculpture and also saw the demise of the ugly ugly
hideous elevated freeway where they "stopped the traffic". (gosh, did
Bono wish for an earthquake...?) The sculpture is still there, minus
Bono's artistic addition (unfortunately). I wish there were more U2
films for us to enjoy. Probably won't happen though. At least there are
the live videos.
Can you tell I love Rattle and Hum? Actually I love every U2 release.
This album just has a special place in my heart because it reminds me of
a time in my life that was difficult (adolescence), but also great
because it was a time of growth.
The music is beautiful, isn't that what matters?
Leann
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief
All kill their inspiration and sing about the grief"
U2 "The Fly"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Tue Dec 15 1998 - 19:53:55 PST